Aspects of the disclosure generally relate to computing devices and computer software. In particular, some embodiments relate to improved user interfaces and other user interaction technologies that can be implemented by and/or otherwise be embodied in computing devices and computer software that provide on-screen keyboards.
Increasingly, computer systems and mobile computing devices, such as smart phones and tablet computers, include touch-sensitive display screens that allow users to interact with and/or otherwise provide input to these systems and devices. For example, a mobile computing device may include a touch-sensitive display screen via which user input can be received in the form of taps, swipes, and other gestures that a user may perform on the screen using his or her finger, a stylus, or some other object. The device in turn may manipulate displayed objects (e.g., user interface objects displayed on the screen) based on the user input received via the touch-sensitive display screen.
In some devices, an on-screen keyboard may be provided on a touch-sensitive display screen, so as to facilitate typing or other character entry. For instance, a mobile computing device may display a user interface on a touch-sensitive display screen that includes a plurality of soft keys arranged in a manner that resembles a physical computer keyboard. As user input is received (e.g., as a user taps on the screen in regions in which particular keys of the keyboard are displayed), the device may interpret the user input as character input. This may include displaying the characters that the user typed on the on-screen keyboard in a text entry region of the user interface, for example.
In some instances, the character input entered by the user via the on-screen keyboard may be a phonetic expression of a word or phrase from another language that does not share the same alphabet as the on-screen keyboard. For example, the on-screen keyboard may include characters from the Latin alphabet arranged in a QWERTY layout, which is a common layout for computer keyboards used in the United States of America, but the character input entered by the user may be a phonetic expression of a word or phrase in Chinese or Japanese. In these instances, the user may wish for the device to interpret and display the character input using characters and/or symbols from the other language's alphabet. For example, the user may wish for the device to interpret and display the character input using Pinyin characters and/or symbols (e.g., for phonetic expressions of Chinese words and phrases) or Kana characters and/or symbols (e.g., for phonetic expressions of Japanese words and phrases).
In some situations, however, a phonetic expression of a word or phrase, such as a phonetic spelling of a Chinese word using the Latin alphabet, may correspond to several different characters and/or symbols in another alphabet, such as in Pinyin, and each of these characters may have a different meaning. To resolve this phonetic ambiguity and determine which meaning the user intends and which character should be inserted into the text, it therefore might be necessary to provide the user with a set of candidate characters and prompt the user to select the intended character from the candidates.
In conventional systems, a device may display a horizontal candidate bar above an on-screen keyboard in which candidate characters can be displayed to a user. The candidate characters in the candidate bar may be selectable, such that the user can select a particular candidate that he or she wishes to insert. In a device that features a larger screen, such as a tablet computer, however, a horizontal candidate bar may occupy a large region of the user interface and the display screen, thereby reducing the amount of space in which other objects might be displayed. In addition, using a horizontal candidate bar may reduce the ease and efficiency with which a user can type on the display screen. For instance, if the user is two-thumb typing on the keyboard while holding the device with his or her other fingers, some of the candidates in a horizontal candidate bar might not be reachable by the user's thumbs, and the user might need to change his or her grip to reach some of the candidates displayed in the candidate bar.